Quiz: Do You Know All of These Home Baking Tricks?: HowStuffWorks

Do You Know All of These Home Baking Tricks?

FOOD & DRINK

By: Daisy Rogozinsky

6 Min Quiz

Image: Petri Oeschger/Moment/Getty Images

About This Quiz

Baking treats at home is no longer just a necessity, required for feeding your family. Instead, it’s transformed into more of a hobby. People enjoy baking for many different reasons. Some appreciate the scientific, precise nature of baking. Others find pleasure in the process of creating something new from scratch with their hands. And a bigger group still just loves to eat the tasty treats that result from a home baking hobby!

Over time, baking at home has become more accessible. The invention of the boxed cake mix in the 1930s revolutionized home baking, making the process much easier and more accessible. Interestingly, the boxed mixes were originally formulated to be used without any fresh ingredients, but the manufacturers found that the housewives who were using their products psychologically preferred to add fresh eggs, leading to the current standard boxed mix recipe that requires eggs.

Whether you prefer to make your breads, cakes and cookies from a boxed mix or from scratch, the process of baking has undeniable cultural and social significance. The looks of appreciation and excitement a baker receives when bringing a batch of fresh muffins to a brunch party shows just how much people appreciate to have a friend or acquaintance with a talent for baking. This quiz will help you find out just how proficient a home baker you are. Good luck!

When can you ice a cake?

Immediately after it is done baking

After it has completely cooled

After removing it from the pan

After 10 minutes

Icing a cake before it is completely cooled is a sure way to incorporate a lot of crumbs into the frosting.

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How can you overcome an oven with uneven heat?

Rotate your pans halfway through baking

Change temperatures halfway through baking

Open the oven door throughout the baking process

Put your baking rack toward the bottom of the oven

Many ovens have unevenly distributed heat throughout them. To combat this common problem, it can be a good idea to rotate your pan halfway through the baking process. This will assure that the dough in different parts of the pan is exposed to the same heat by the end of the baking process.

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Which of the following tools is best for incorporating air into batter?

Whisk

Rubber spatula

Wooden spoon

Metal spoon

Whisks are the best tools for incorporating air into batter because they whip up the batter, creating small air pockets. This then makes for a fluffier baked good.

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How do you bloom yeast?

Let it rest in warm, sugared water.

Mix it with salt and pepper.

Let it rest in cool water.

Let it rest in the refrigerator.

Most recipes that involve a lot of rising, like bread and pretzels, have a first step of letting yeast bloom. This means putting yeast and sugar in warm water until it reacts and becomes foamy.

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What temperature should butter be when creaming together butter and sugar?

Room temperature

Melted

Cold

Frozen

When creaming together butter and sugar, the sugar crystals must create small holes in the butter. This is easier to achieve with softened, room-temperature butter. This process is called aeration and results in a fluffier final result.

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Glass measuring cups are best used for what type of ingredient?

Liquid

Powder

Sticky ingredients

Dairy

Generally, you should use glass measuring cups for liquid ingredients like milk and oil. Metal measuring cups are best for dry ingredients, like flour.

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Which common item can be used to help keep brown sugar from drying out?

Sliced bread

Lemon

Silica packets

Multivitamins

Brown sugar is known for drying out during storage. This is a common irritation for home and professional bakers alike. For an easy fix, store your brown sugar with a slice of bread. This will keep the brown sugar moist - and the bread won't mold!

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What is the name of the first, thin coat of frosting placed on a cake?

Crumb coat

First coat

Thin coat

Chill coat

Before you can frost a cake decoratively, you must apply a thin layer called a "crumb coat" to seal down all of the crumbs. After crumb coating, you should chill your cake before applying further layers of frosting.

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What ingredient helps enhance the flavor of your baked goods?

Salt

Oil

Sugar

Eggs

Salt is usually included in recipes for desserts because it helps to enhance the flavor of the other ingredients. The purpose is not to make the food salty.

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Which of these tricks helps to remove air bubbles in dough?

Tapping the pan on a hard surface

Mixing with a fork

Using a cold pan

Mixing with a hand mixer

Many pastries, like macarons, require an even dough without any air bubbles. An important step in making these is to pop the air bubbles by lightly tapping the pan on a hard surface before baking.

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Which type of baked good should be chilled before baking?

Cookies

Cakes

Brownies

Bread

Though it's hard to wait, it is usually recommended to refrigerate cookie dough for up to 24 hours before baking cookies. Or you can use the premade stuff to save time.

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Which of these ingredients is not part of royal icing?

Water

Confectioner’s sugar

Egg white

Baking powder

Royal icing is made of a combination of confectioner's sugar (also known as powdered sugar), egg white and water.

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What is a common plant-based substitute for honey?

Agave nectar

Brown sugar

High fructose corn syrup

White sugar

Agave nectar is a naturally occurring sweetener. It is often used in the place of honey due to its similar texture and flavor

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Which of these combination of ingredients makes chocolate ganache?

Chocolate and heavy cream

Chocolate and half and half

Chocolate and whipped cream

Chocolate and vegetable oil

Chocolate ganache can be made by pouring heavy cream over heated chocolate chunks and mixing them together until they are combined. It is often used in cakes.

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When is it acceptable not to preheat your oven?

When in a hurry

When baking from a boxed mix

When baking with a convection oven

You should always preheat.

Baking is a science, and recipes must be followed exactly. Your baked goods should go in an oven of the exact temperature specified in the recipe. Using an oven thermometer is a great way to be sure that you are following the recipe.

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What is the best way to remove egg shells from batter?

With a larger piece of egg shell

With your hands

With a spoon

With an orange peel

A tool that is convenient and effective for removing egg shell shards from your mixing bowl is to use the other half of the egg shell that hasn't fallen in. This also has the added benefit of keeping your hands clean.

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What does “mise en place” refer to?

Having all of your ingredients ready to go before baking

Putting your pan on the right oven rack

Only filling your pans ¾ of the way full

A cake decorating trick

Mise en place is French for "put in place." This is the step of baking that involves preparing all of your ingredients. It's an important step to make the baking process run more smoothly.

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Which of the following is egg wash not used for?

To add color

To add shine

To seal dough

To improve taste

Adding a wash of eggs to baked goods before putting them in the oven doesn't change the flavor, but it does add shine and golden color. Egg wash can also be used for sealing pastry dough together when making something like apple strudel.

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How many tablespoons are in a cup?

12

14

16

10

While it is not an exact equivalent, there are approximately 16 tablespoons in a cup. This conversion is most useful with ingredients like butter.

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What temperature should you keep your butter when baking a pie?

Cold

Room temperature

Warm

Hot

Cold butter does not get mixed completely into a pie crust batter. Instead, the butter remains in small pieces throughout the dough. This helps create a flakier crust.

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Which of these is not made of choux pastry dough?

Cream puffs

Eclaires

Profiteroles

Macarons

Choux pastry is made of butter, water, flour and eggs. It is used to make many baked goods including eclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles, churros and beignets.

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How many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?

2

3

4

6

Teaspoons and tablespoons are both very common forms of measuring ingredients like salt and baking soda. There are three teaspoons in one tablespoon.

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How can you assure the accuracy of your oven temperature?

With an oven thermometer

Through trial and error

By boiling water in the oven

By calibrating the temperature reading

Most ovens shift temperature over time. They might read a certain temperature but in reality be 10 or 20 degrees cooler or hotter. To make sure you know the exact temperature of your oven, it is best to use an oven thermometer.

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Which of these is not a type of flour used in baking?

Bread flour

Cake flour

All-purpose flour

Cookie flour

While breads and cakes are specific baked goods that require special flour, cookies are usually made using all-purpose flour. There is no special flour just for cookies.

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Which of these is not a common substitute for butter?

Applesauce

Avocado

Plain yogurt

Evaporated milk

While plain yogurt is most often used in the place of butter for health reasons, applesauce and avocado are two common ingredients of choice in vegan baking. And no, you usually can't taste the avocado! (When it's done right.)

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How can you patch cracked fondant?

With a fondant paste made of fondant and water

With sugar

With the heat from your hands

With food coloring

Fondant, a type of icing used to decorate cakes, can be difficult to work with, especially when covering large or unusually shaped cakes. To patch the cracks that inevitably occur, you can create a paste with a small amount of fondant mixed with water.

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Which of these tricks helps keep cakes moist?

Drizzling with simple syrup

Cooling in the refrigerator

Drizzling with water

Storing in the freezer

Simple syrup is made of equal parts water and sugar. It can be drizzled on cake layers to keep them moist throughout the decorating process.

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Which type of flour is not ideal for baking bread?

All-purpose flour

Bread flour

Whole wheat flour

White whole wheat flour

All-purpose flour generally has less protein than other varieties (such as bread flour), meaning that it produces less gluten when worked into a dough. What results can be a flat, structurally unsound loaf.

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Which of these is not a common substitute for pie weights?

Dried beans

Rice

Loose change

Sand

Pie weights are typically used when blind baking a pie crust in order to make sure that the crust does not warp or deform during the baking process. Not everybody has pie weights readily available in their kitchen, but most people do have access to beans, rice or some quarters.

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Which of the following ingredients can kill yeast?

Salt

Milk

Cocoa powder

Sugar

When mixing ingredients, it's important to put the salt and bloomed yeast on opposite sides of your mixing bowl. This is because salt is capable of killing yeast by sucking the water out of it.

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What is the best way to measure ingredients?

Measuring cups

Kitchen scale

Bathroom scale

Relative to one another

The amount of an ingredient that fits into a measuring cup or spoon can vary greatly depending on the situation. For a more accurate measurement, it is best to use a kitchen scale.

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What is the shelf life of refined flour?

1 month

3 months

6 months

1 year

Refined flour contains less oil than other flour varieties, making it last longer on the shelf. You can expect your typical all-purpose flour to last at least a year in your pantry. Once it starts to go bad, it will begin to smell sour.

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What is the purpose of sifting dry ingredients?

To spread out the dry ingredients

To mix dry ingredients

To decrease the volume of the dry ingredients

To increase preparation time

When sifting flour, you space the flour particles out away from each other. This allows the other ingredients to mix in more evenly in between the flour.

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What is the difference between baking soda and baking powder?

Baking powder is baking soda plus an acidifying agent and a drying agent.

Baking powder is baking soda plus an acidifying agent.

Baking powder is baking soda plus a drying agent.

Baking powder does not contain baking soda, though it works similarly.

Baking powder and baking soda are both leavening agents that create carbon dioxide bubbles in batter, forcing it to rise. Baking powder contains baking soda as well as an acidifying agent like cream of tartar and a drying agent like starch.

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What is the best type of salt for baking?

Iodized table salt

Sea salt

Flake salt

Kosher salt

While most forms of salt will do in a baked good, sea salt tends to produce the best final flavor. However, it is not the only option available when you're in a pinch... Pun intended.

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